"But there 's the telegraph!"
"It 'd take half an hour to get the operator out of bed—office is closed. Nope. We 'll take the short cut. And we 'll beat him there by a half-hour!"
Anita started.
"You mean the Argonaut tunnel?"
"Yes. Call up there and tell them to get a motor ready for us to shoot straight through. We can make it at thirty miles an hour, and the skip in the Reunion Mine will get us to the surface in five minutes. The tunnel ends sixteen hundred feet underground, about a thousand feet from Center City," he explained, as he noted Fairchild's wondering gaze. "You stay here. We 've got to wait for those prisoners—and lock 'em up. I 'll be getting my car warmed up to take us to the tunnel."
Anita already was at the 'phone, and Fairchild sank into a chair, watching her with luminous eyes. The world was becoming brighter; it might be night, with a blizzard blowing, to every one else,—but to Fairchild the sun was shining as it never had shone before. A thumping sound came from without. Harry entered with his two charges, followed shortly by Bardwell, the sheriff, while just beneath the office window a motor roared in the process of "warming up." The sheriff looked from one to the other of the two men.
"These people have made charges against you," he said shortly. "I want to know a little more about them before I go any farther. They say you 've been high-jacking."
Taylor Bill nodded in the affirmative.
"And that you robbed the Old Times dance and framed the evidence against this big Cornishman?"
Taylor Bill scraped a foot on the floor.